Request More Information

Evaluating Magnet Designation Through Outcomes

The ANCC’s Magnet Designation is a program which has evolved from its early model which laid out 14 forces of Magnetism into a more directed and focused 5 component model in 2008, which has its sights set on measuring improvements in outcomes. Patient outcome is the ultimate goal for any initiative that a hospital puts in place. That is because there can be numerous touch points within a patient’s movement through the provider’s facility or system which all factor into the outcome equation.

At the end of the day, you can preach all the nursing best practices in the world and even be held to account to employ those best practices, but if your patients are not showing an improved outcome you’ve somehow missed the mark. Keeping just 5 key pillars of the program in the line of site is more reasonable for both management and staff. It limits overlap between goals and draws a clearer connection to the measurement of those improvements.

Once these concepts have been converted into actionable plans for a specific organization, the necessary tools must be implemented which will provide the recording of data necessary to attain and re-designate your recognition as a Magnet organization. Empirical evidence is, by nature derived through observations, but if these observations are not being systematically captured, you lack real proof points. For this, the creation of a Professional Nurse Database is a must. A set of tools which can help to develop, evaluate and provide empirical evidence of your progress on any number of goals.

A big part of such a system is easy access to education to help staff to maintain compliance or advance their career. The evidence here is in the form of a transcript. It also requires a mechanism to demonstrate clinical performance such as with the use of checklists. Using evaluations provides a clear line of communication and feedback by managers help to encourage developmental action on the part of their nurses. The final piece is the culmination of this entire competency picture which has been created, also known as the portfolio. For the institution, if the individual nurse has been maintaining their portfolio, not only can you pick and choose very specific mufti-dimensional metrics to report on, but when it comes time to submit your nurse demographics information form to the ANCC, the work has already been done.